Though men on both parties fell, and with every passing moment there were less people to fight the violence only seemed to escalate with the passage of time. This was, admittedly, a fact brought on by the conjurations and illusions of the Thalmor. Many an Imperial soldier would beam with pride as he dodged the slice of an Altmer only to find that the foe he counter-attacked would burst in a puff of warm magicka. Typically, this would leave such a person open to being killed by a foeman that was not in fact, an illusion. The fact would rather quickly spread through the ranks that the merest of contact would defeat the illusions, prompting a far more aggressive style of fighting from the Legionnaires; where even a single tap to he foe's breastplate would be more important than awaiting a chance for a meaningful riposte. While this somewhat solved the issue of illusory foes, this accomplished the initial goal of such illusions of creating distractions that would allow more footmen to survive, and hence slay more Imperials. 

But the valiant efforts of the squad and the Legion as a whole were not in vain, even if for the moment insufficient. As they charged out to meet the foe, the barrage of fireballs largely ceased, the Thalmor wizards instead beginning to use sparks to ensure the death of the wounded with well placed electricity. Now of course, the kill tallies moved to the archers. The footmen of the elves switched to far more defensive postures, squatting with shields held high to simply take their enemy's attention whilst arrows flew overhead upon the Legion. The greatest quantity was of course aimed at the Legate, the Aldmeri archers rather careless of hitting their comrades knowing that such would be forgiven tenfold if they contributed to the death of the Legate. Besides, who would be able to tell it was them in particular? 

Regardless, the melee around the Legate was perhaps the most chaotic of the frontline. It seemed that just as he was a high value target, so was he a beacon of hope (or safety, for the more cynical and perhaps numerous of the minds assembled....) in the battle. The duo of dunmer in particular would bear witness to the savagery of his fighting. Though beneath his armour he was perhaps a few centimetres shorter than the gargantuan woman near him, Ingjald's girth was far greater; this was most evidenced when with his shoulder he struck the glass breastplate of a Thalmor officer that had not backed behind his minions in time, shattering the tough but brittle protection just as the ribs beneath with a shoulder barge. But having found himself over extended he was pinned in place by several of the foe, each trying to pick at the weakpoints of his armour enchanted at Skyrim college of wizardry. In an act of desperation were uttered but three well known syllables:

[center][b]FUS-RO-DAH[/b][/center]

As the Legate coated himself and the comrades nearest him in a slurry of what remained of the Altmer nearest him, the words were echoed by the Nordic component of the Legion. Never before had the phrase [i]unrelenting force[/i] brought a smile to so many faces. But though the morale of the Legion improved with the sight and sound mere single digits of the foe had fallen in the battle. But the effect on the foe's morale was as pronounced, even if in the inverse effect. Elven soldiers began to back away from the Legate, but with a wave of his hand for his troops to follow he would pursue. The Imperials were now on the offensive, and though they still had much to fight through the Imperial army had cut through the illusions, with reserves of magicka among the Thalmor exhausted for the foreseeable future. This was in effect the signal to cut losses and retreat with the satisfaction of having killed hundreds of Imperial wounding hundreds more. 

A retreat began, a rather organized affair among the wizards who simply took a head count among their formations and then legged it. The archers - or those that still had arrows at least - did their best to cover their retreat. Some had this in the form of well drilled stances where lines would form, volleys be fired and then some several dozen paces displaced before this was replaced. Among others, this was simply an affair of running and shooting whenever they had managed to pull an arrow from their quiver and knock it. Neither of these were particularly accurate, but they had the intended effect of frightening away more cautious Imperials or impaling some of the over-eager ones in their haste to pursue.

The worst off were the footmen; they who for reasons ranging from lack of skill and intelligence to a heritage of mixed race were at the very bottom of the Aldmeri dominion's social substrata in the military. Some attempted to stand their ground, not quite realizing that the other troops were leaving regardless of if anybody remained behind. Others attempted to do a fighting retreat, using the cover of volleys to sprint before pausing to catch their breath and parry those who tried to run them down. Others simply ran for it, deciding to use those that had not as a pleasant distraction for their survival. 

Warfare in the traditional sense had ceased. For the Altmer it was now a matter of survival, over the corpse of fallen brothers and sisters in arms if necessary. For the Imperials, it was now a matter of vengeance (in the passion of which many lost their lives) whilst for others it had become a matter of licking wounds, taking stock of the fallen and trying to avoid becoming a casualty after the battle was already done.